


The Painter, the Whore, and the Murderer

by honeyshoshana



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 1870s France, Alternate Universe - Historical, Art History, Artist's Model Sherlock, Attempted Historical Accuracy, Case Fic, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Historical, M/M, Montmartre, Painting, Paris (City), Prostitution, Romance, Sassy John, Serial Killers, impressionism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 10:26:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyshoshana/pseuds/honeyshoshana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>La belle Paris, circa 1877. </p><p>The City of Light they called it, shining, gaslit Paris, with its monuments, cafes, and the giggling girls and their admirers picnicking on the banks of the Seine, the smell of croissants, espresso, cigarettes and manure floating merrily along the boulevards.</p><p>All seemed peaceful except for the chunks of human flesh that kept turning up at insane asylums.</p><p>Sherlock goes undercover as a Parisian prostitute to catch a particularly brutal murderer. John is an Impressionist painter searching for a muse. When Sherlock overdoses on absinthe and John nurses him back to health, they agree to a business arrangement: Sherlock will model for John, and John will take care of Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. L'Absinthe

La belle Paris, circa 1877. 

The City of Light, they called it, shining, gaslit Paris, with its monuments, its salons, and the giggling girls and their admirers picnicking on the banks of the Seine. The smell of croissants, espresso, cigarettes and manure floated along the boulevards still stained with the blood of the revolutionary idealists of the Paris Commune. All seemed peaceful but for the chunks of human flesh that kept turning up at insane asylums. 

In the city of lights, of luminaries like Stravinsky, Proust, Zola and Degas, lived a sandy blond man with wooden cane and flecks of paint on his clothes, not a luminary, but a conductor of light. 

\------------

Springtime in Paris, and John Watson was alone at the Folies-Bergere. 

Perched on a wooden stool, leg dangling uncomfortably, he was one solitary, morose island among the giddy denizens of the famous raucous dance hall. Around his table music swirled, the petticoats of girls dancing the galop winked and swished brazenly, and the fug of cigarettes hung heavy around the gilded ceiling where a trapeze artist swung overhead.

He nodded to the bartender who he vaguely remembered meeting at a gathering of Manet’s. A woman named Suzon, a prostitute and Manet's model, he remembered, jolted by the dish of oranges on the bar, a symbol of favors for sale. He tapped his fingers on the wooden table, narrowly avoiding a sticky patch of gin and nursed his pint. 

To a casual observer he would seem unremarkable. Sandy blond hair, stocky build, thin lips, mobile face. Plain working clothes, brown trousers, white linen shirt, rumpled brown waistcoat, with the sole pop of color a somber maroon ascot. A scuffed wooden cane leaned precariously against the wall behind him. 

The casual observer would form an image of a pleasant, industrious looking, generally forthright man, perhaps a bit careworn, a little creased, a little raw, but generally an honest looking fellow. 

A talented observer would have seen more, noticed the man’s military bearing, the tightness of one shoulder, the flecks of dried paint on his clothes and boots, the charcoal stains on his fingers, the tremor in his left hand, and the carefully disguised sorrow in his eyes.

A talented observer could have deduced his whole life story from the marks on his boots and the creases of his eyes, but said talented observer was currently at the bar, pouring absinthe down his lily white throat as if he was trying to drown himself and splashing viscous, green drops on his unbuttoned, artfully disheveled shirt. 

John sighed, the sound lost in the swirl of accordions, shrieking laughter of the prostitutes, and the thumping of wooden floorboards from the frenzied dancing. He shifted his weight on the hard wooden stool and flicked his eyes around the room, wondering how Degas could stand the chaos of this place, and even more improbably, draw inspiration from it. 

His eyes landed on his friend, who was leaning against the stage chatting up some of the dancing girls. He looked alive and vibrant, his brown eyes dancing as he visibly sucked creative inspiration from the scene. John remembered the nervous man who served alongside him in the National Guard in 1870, so worried about his failing eyesight and what it would mean for his artistic career, and a slanted smile crossed his face. By the way Edgar was leaning towards the flirtatious, scantily clad girls, his eyesight was just fine. 

John tapped his fingers on the table decisively. Degas had his best interests at heart bringing him here, but this was not where he would find his muse. He wasn't sure where he'd find the inspiration to paint, but it wasn't here. His mind drifted to his art, and his lips twisted. 

Little limping John Watson with his lovely landscapes and cityscapes, selling his paintings in the market. He was a magnet for old ladies with a few coins to spend, and he didn’t mind painting the placid scenes. It paid the bills, which is more than some artists could say. It wasn’t fulfilling however, and it wasn’t bragging to say that he was capable of more than insipid scenes of the Champs-Elysee, or the Arc du Triomphe. 

He was settling into a rut, John thought ruefully. He painted uninspired cityscapes, limped to and from his rooms, occasionally went out with the other painters of his acquaintance, dined simply, lived within his means, and at night, the dreams of the Semaine Sanglante, the bloody week at the end of the rule of the Paris Commune haunted him. Frenchmen killing Frenchmen, chaos in the street, a woman screaming as if her heart was breaking, blood running through his fingers as he frantically staunched wounds, his old medic kit lying forgotten, blood seeping into the rough duck cloth, entrails soft and pliant under his fingers-- 

A drunk staggered into him on his way to pick up one of the pretty boy prostitutes that leaned enticingly against the wall, and the spell was broken.

John sighed, scrubbing at his brow, feeling suddenly too old for this place. After his service in the Franco-Prussian war and his time as a medic for the Paris Commune he had been shaken to his core. The sight of the madness and bloodshed in the beautiful bustling rues of Paris that he’d grown up in had shaken something loose inside him. He had found himself unable to see the streets as anything but a war zone until Degas had come to visit him, bringing a box of paints and a canvas and coaxing him gently to paint the very real beauty of the post war, scrubbed Paris. 

It had soothed him to paint the sweet golden light that danced on the storefronts and cafes, the streetlight's flickering glow, the bridges across the Seine, and to have tangible reminders of the new quiet and peace in his streets. He’d used what remained of his army pension to rent a tiny room with a studio and purchase a paintbox, canvas and easel, and he had been content in his quiet life. 

John rose to his feet with a weary groan, dodging drunks and dandies, workers and ladies, as he tipped his cap to Degas and headed out the door. His cane was a constant thumping companion as he meandered down the street. Dodging a puddle of horse manure, he tripped over a prone foot and almost flew head first into the asphaltum. He caught himself with an almost forgotten agility that made him smile grimly despite himself before turning his attention to the body in the alley. 

Slumped against a brick wall was the owner of the foot that had tripped him, a thin, pale man, clearly teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. 

He was being harangued by a belligerent drunk who grabbed the man by his grubby linen shirt, shaking him before attempting a sloppy kiss. The gaunt man turned his head away listlessly, seeming unable to muster much energy to fight. 

John sighed, he’d seen men try to take what wasn’t offered before. He strode quietly into the mouth of the alley, and with a shout and a few deft blows of his stout wooden cane the sot fled, trailing curses as he staggered off. Rolling his eyes, John turned to leave the alley and continue home, before his eyes fell on the man again. 

But this was no man, this was an angel. 

John gawped like a country rube seeing Notre Dame for the first time. The slim figure, with his halo of dark curls, slanting eyes rimmed by sooty drooping lashes, flawless skin-- John immediately pictured how he’d paint that pristine porcelain skin, with a dash of cream, highlighted with gold and pinks-- and that mouth, those sensual plush lips -pink, carmine, faint hints of maroon, his brain helpfully supplied- and he had to suppress a gasp as the man’s eyes opened and looked dazedly into John. Lovat, emerald, juniper, aquamarine, flecks of gold, John would need to buy a whole new paint box to capture those eyes. Aware he was staring, he promptly blushed and stammered as those eyes looked at him uncomprehendingly. 

“Are you feeling alright monsieur?” His only reply was a dazed murmur. Bending closer, he was hit by a pungent whiff of anise. 

Absinthe. He should have realized. 

The man’s wan complexion and vacant eyes were familiar. He’d seen eyes like them staring from alleys, bars, and most recently, from a painting of Degas’ he’d called L’Absinthe. This man’s eyes had more splintering intelligence in them than the listless woman in the painting, but he was essentially helpless, and the night was quickly turning chilly. With a last, fuzzy blink up at John, the man’s eyes slid closed, seemingly dead to the world. 

John’s stomach sank. He couldn’t just leave this extraordinary man alone in the alley. Anyone could come upon him, and then an unwanted kiss would be the last of his worries. With a sigh, John’s mind was made up.

Bending down and tentatively wrapping his fingers around the man’s frail but sinewy wrist failed to make him dissipate, as his fey features would imply. John slung the pale arm around his own shoulders, swinging him up onto his feet. 

“Up you get then…” he muttered, mostly to himself. The pale, disheveled body was deadweight, and leaning on his bad leg. 

With a muttered curse, he lifted him bodily, amazed at the solidity of the man with the birdlike bones, and began to drag him down the street. With heaving and prodding, they slowly wended their way through the streets, John thanking his lucky stars that he lived relatively near.

On seeing the flight of stairs that heralded his rooms, he heaved a sigh of frustration, depositing the man at the bottom of the steps, darting up to unlock and open the door, and rushing back to drag him up again.

Quickly realizing that there was no way to make the man’s feet cooperate enough to climb the stairs, he gritted his teeth, swallowed his embarrassment and, lifting the man beneath his shoulders and knees, as a bridegroom would carry his blushing bride over the hearth of their new home, he staggered forward, up the steps, and into his rooms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my beautiful beta, callous-and-strange!
> 
> The Folies-Bergere and Suzon the barmaid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bar_at_the_Folies-Berg%C3%A8re
> 
> L'Absinthe, the painting John thinks of when he sees Sherlock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Absinthe
> 
> As a historical interpreter and artist's model, this is going to be as accurate as possible. If I deviate, I shall declare.


	2. Chapter 2

Depositing his lax, unresponsive cargo on the worn green Chesterfield sofa, John straightened and dusted off his hands. Flicking on the gaslights, he surveyed his burden. 

The man was lying prone where John had unceremoniously dropped him, glowing gaslight throwing the bones in his face into high relief. He looked like a statue, elegant even in unconsciousness. 

John bent down to check his pulse-elevated, but steady- and to try to unravel the mystery of this dark stranger.

Good quality but worn cream linen shirt, no ascot, top three buttons unbuttoned. Trousers in charcoal gray wool, too tight for fashion. He’d lost his frock coat and waistcoat somewhere during the evening. His boots were black and, when John peered closer, of astonishingly good make. Stolen? 

John’s eyes narrowed. Tight trousers, provocatively cut shirt, high quality accessories… Was this man he’d rescued a worker at a maison du tolerance? He wished he could check for a license, but searching the man’s pockets seemed incredibly invasive. 

With a sigh, John knelt, shouldered the dead weight and staggered into his bedroom. After depositing the man more carefully onto his bed, made as usual with military precision, he hesitated. He had already decided to let the man sleep off the ill effects of the absinthe in his rooms, but what if he was dosed with something more illicit? 

Telling himself that the thrill that ran through his veins when he touched the wrists of the stranger was just embarrassment, he gently lifted the sleeves. The pale ivory skin was marred very slightly with faint, pale track marks. John’s breath whooshed out in shock and mild horror. 

Alright. Maison de tolerance employee was looking more and more probable. 

Carefully, John unlaced the man’s well made boots, pulling them off and placing them by his bed neatly from force of habit. Pausing to remove his Modele 1874 Chamelot-Delvigne revolver from under his pillow and tuck it into his waistband, he pushed and pulled the man until his head was flopped on the pillow and he had stuffed the man’s long, octopus-like limbs under his blanket. 

Breathing a little heavily, he surveyed the scene, fetched a glass of water for his bedside, drew the curtains in the room so the early morning sunlight wouldn’t wake the stranger, and blew out the light. He paused in the doorway and looked back. The man snuffled in his sleep, alabaster skin still dewy, hair tousled on John’s pillow. 

He didn’t know why he was fussing so much over this man, anxiously taking care of a drunk he found in an alley. Memories of Harriet swam to the surface of his mind. Was he perhaps compensating for his inability to save his sister from the bottle? 

He dismissed the thought as sentimental tosh, but he couldn’t shake the persistent feeling that caring for this stranger was right, and felt natural and easy. John shook his head, and lay down on the Chesterfield with his gun in easy reach. Just because he instinctively felt that the man passed out in his bed wasn’t a threat didn’t mean he should abandon his military training.

He slept with one eye open that night. 

\-------------

Dust motes floated lazily on the sunbeams that drifted through John’s smudged windows, and danced over the scuffed wooden floors, serviceable furniture, and beige walls. The room would have been unremarkable but for the exuberance of the colors splattering all surfaces, the stacks of canvas, and the smell of turpentine that lay thickly around the room. Stretching sleepily, he wondered thickly why he was lying on the sofa. Late night, perhaps? 

He padded into the tiny kitchen on autopilot, beginning to potter around with the gas range and the kettle. While rummaging about for the tea, he suddenly froze. The man! In his bed! 

Abandoning the morning ritual, he catfooted, avoiding the floorboard that had developed a squeak with the damp to his bedroom door and peered in breathlessly. 

One solitary sunbeam broke free of the confines of the curtains, and fell devastatingly on this face of this stranger. His thoughts skittered guiltily past thoughts of the sheer beauty of his face and the sweet vulnerability of sleep-he looked so young!-- and fell on picturing how he would paint the scene. 

Warm caramelized light, dusky shadows, golden cheekbones, inky hair. In a Neo-Classical style, perhaps. Model it as a sleeping Narcissus, or a slumbering Cupid before Psyche. A painting half as beautiful as the scene that met his eyes would assure his admission into a exhibition, perhaps even into the Academy! No matter that Monet, Renoir and Degas disdained the Academy, John had to side with Manet here. Once one was admitted, one had the pick of patrons as well as recognition most artists sought. With a painting as beautiful as this man asleep in the sunbeam on his rumpled sheets, perhaps he would even win the all expenses paid year in Italy. 

Telling himself that it was not strange to do this, not terribly intrusive, John crept back to the room that served as his studio, grabbed a sketchbook and some charcoal, and perched at the edge of the door. 

With broad strokes of the pencil, he outlined the proportions of the scene, one and a half units from top of head to collarbone, the same from collarbone to bottom of the hips, the wall, the bed, the window. John had always been a good draftsman, and it showed as his pencil began to flick across the paper faster, filling in details, the curls of the hair, the elegant sweep of the arm, and the sheet thrown carelessly across legs sprawled over far more than half the bed. 

Finishing the initial study, he focused on the face, instinctively knowing it would be the hardest part of the man to draw. He mused to himself that he'd never seen a more beautiful man, and as an artist, John considered himself a connoisseur of beauty. He wasn't even a sodomite and he found the man attractive! 

Turning to a new page, he carefully recorded the high forehead, devastating cheekbones, cupids bow lips, sooty sweep of eyelashes, and strong chin. 

After a good forty minutes, he had a likeness. As he studied the drawing he’d created, John realized that it was perhaps the best piece he’d made for months, if not years. It had felt so effortless, so natural. He’d forgotten the happiness that accompanied making art. 

Around an hour had passed, and John’s stomach gurgled unpleasantly. Sighing, he got up, shook the stiffness out of his leg, and limped to the kitchen. There wasn’t much food there, he would need to sell another painting soon. Gritting his teeth as he made a mental note, he began to assemble a lunch.

\----------------

The scent of turpentine and soap was the first thing to penetrate the fug of Sherlock’s hungover mind. 

He snapped instantly into consciousness as he always did, brain lighting up like one of Mr. Edison's new electric prototypes. Rough sheets, some sort of coarse linen, he estimated. Not as soft as his own, but after the week he had spent in squalor, delicious. And he wasn’t alone in the unfamiliar place, there were faint noises of someone moving around in the room over, trying to be quiet. 

Opening his eyes, he saw a plain beige room with a single window facing a brick wall. Afternoon light, so he had been asleep for around nine hours, he estimated. Carefully, as to not upset his stomach or throbbing head, he sat up. 

An unexpected kindness: a glass of water sat on his bedside table. Not the gesture of a kidnapper. He drained it in one gulp, setting it down and wiping a hand over his mouth. 

Sherlock ran a quick check up and down his body, well used to waking up with no memory of the night before. Bruises on heels, consistent with being dragged, limbs aching, dry mouth, faint nausea, pounding in his head as loud as a locomotive. No cuts or bruises. Gingerly, almost afraid, Sherlock checked his inner arms for new track marks. Nothing. Excellent. 

Sherlock frowned when he realized that his brain wasn’t working as fast as it usually did. Given, he was quite hungover. 

It seemed that he’d finally managed to get taken home. This was something Sherlock had been actively trying to avoid, so he was a little disgruntled. Posing as a prostitute to catch a serial killer was worrying enough without worrying about syphilis as well. Or an emotional connection, which would almost be worse. 

Granted, he was mostly dressed, and not sore in any inappropriate places. No waistcoat, frock coat or boots though. Pity, his wallet had been in his coat. He would have to drop by his real house or steal something, or… he could take what he was owed from the man he had spent the night with. 

He groaned quietly. He never liked waking up in strange beds, and hated gaps in his memory. It hadn’t happened in a while, he had successfully avoided most mind altering substances for at least a few months. 

Sherlock scrubbed at his face disgruntledly. This particular serial killer was leading him on a very merry dance indeed, and he was frankly getting tired of it. Sherlock was nothing but dedicated to solving this case, but the week he’d spent so far posing as a prostitute had been taxing to the point of driving him to drink. 

A new throb of his head arrived punishingly. That’s it, he was never drinking again. Opium and cocaine were far more palatable options. A draft hit his thinly clad shoulders, and he winced. 

There was no point in stalling, Holmes, he told himself. He would have to go confront the man he’d slept with. 

Swinging his legs out from the warm shelter of the blankets and easing himself to his feet, he crossed the bare floorboards and took in the other room with his practiced gaze. Ten by twelve, he estimated. Another smudged window, south facing. For the light, he assumed, noting the stacks of canvasses and easel leaning against the wall. Ah, an artist, and this was his studio. 

He lived alone, the green Chesterfield sofa was worn especially in one, obviously accustomed spot. There was a rickety wooden table with some correspondence, a few letters. One or two faded calling cards, several bills, and one or two envelopes that were clearly from a woman, judging by the handwriting. A wife? Fiance? By the state of the rooms, he suspected sister. If a mother or fiance ever called he would have made more of an effort to clean. Not that everything wasn’t pin straight and tidy, interesting. 

Possible military career? Sherlock had noticed his boots were carefully lined up where he could yank them on if he was summoned from bed. Habit? Yes, everything was neat and orderly in one half of the room, but the other half was clearly devoted to art. A spattered drop cloth, dried paint on a palette, an easel with a half finished sketch of Paris, Rue St. Michel, if he wasn’t mistaken, and some of the newly invented paint in tubes. 

Was he one of those dreadful Impressionist fellows? Sherlock hadn’t been keeping up in the news in the art world as well as befitted someone of his station, but granted, he’d been busy for the past month hunting down a serial killer who preyed on prostitutes.

There was a faint humming coming from the kitchen, and Sherlock curled his mouth distastefully. There was nothing for it, so he effortlessly dropped into his persona.

Shoulders hunched submissively, languid spine, eyelashes low, head ducked, hips sinuously swaying he crossed the room silently, heading for the source of the humming, planning to get his money and get out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maison du tolerance: brothel. In France in the 1870s, there was rampant prostitution, and John is taking Sherlock for a midrange type of prostitute. Unfortunately, there isn't much scholarly literature (or any information at all hardly) on male prostitution in this time period, so I'm settling for a melange of what I can find and genderswapping the history a bit... And yes, they were licensed which gives me a bit of the giggles. 
> 
> John's gun, the Modele 1874 Chamelot-Delvigne, is a typical officer's pistol from the Franco-Prussian War.
> 
> As far as historical terms for homosexuality go, sodomite is the most used one here. I could go with invert, but that never caught on in France... Homosexual didn't catch on until the 1890s... Pederast, but that's not quite right... And I wanted an English word as to not interrupt the flow of the story... Apologies.
> 
> Fine okay Edison invented the lightbulb in 1878... 
> 
> I love having John namedrop his Impressionist buddies deal with it.
> 
> I promise they'll meet in the next chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

John was humming under his breath as he puttered around, slicing brie and sausage and finding half of yesterday’s baguette for sandwiches when the floorboards creaked behind him. 

He stiffened. His guest had woken up. 

Almost soundless, light feet brought their owner directly behind John. If he wasn't a soldier and attuned to small noises he might not have noticed. As John began to turn around, knife still in hand, the man was abruptly pressed up against him. 

John stifled an unmanly surprised squeak. His body was muscled and hard, and John hadn’t realized how much taller the other man was, or anticipated how lovely he would smell, like ink and sandalwood, leather, and absinthe. 

Wordlessly, he wrapped one sinewy arm around John’s waist, and with the other hand, ran his fingers through John’s short hair, tilted John’s unresisting head back against his shoulder and bent his head, warm lips brushing his sensitive earlobe. 

John was no sodomite or weak willed miss, but he shivered girlishly, taken by surprise. He had anticipated questions or anger when the stranger woke up, not seduction.

He was honestly about to push the stranger away and disabuse him of any notions of romance, but then the stranger spoke and all rationality flew out of his head. 

“Bon matin, monsieur.” 

The everyday greeting was rumbled in a way that sent fire shooting through his veins and ice down his spine. His knees trembled. It was too much, the purring voice and the warm body and the scent of absinthe and ink.

It had been so long since he'd been touched this way.

John opened his mouth to stammer a reply, trying frantically to get his body under control, but he was cut off by the sweep of the man’s lips down his neck and to his shoulder. 

The knife John had been using to slice the sausage clattered to the counter. 

The man’s curls tickled John’s ear when he breathed across his neck and began slowly, torturously, mouthing at the pulse point there. John’s head fell back with a faint whimper. As the stranger’s plush lips nibbled, his elegant long fingers, swept across John’s hip bones in a distinctly seductive way.

A little voice in his head was screaming that he wasn’t a sodomite, that this man was his guest and nothing more, that this was wrong, but it was drowned in the overwhelming sensuousness of the heat against his back, the torturous whisper of lips on his neck, and the strong arms, so unlike a woman's, wrapped around his waist. 

The man’s stubble rasped against the delicate curve at the base of John’s neck, and that coupled with the slow slide of his fingers into the waistband of his trousers (his trousers my god they weren't even acquainted!) finally made John startle and shake the man off. 

He wheeled around to face the seductive stranger and caught his breath. His wild, jungle eyes were boring into John’s, their bodies close enough to feel the heat from each other. 

Slowly, deliberately, the man braced himself against the counter behind John, and began to lean in. John opened his mouth to speak, but found himself drowning in those fathomless blue and emerald flecked eyes. The eyes were getting closer and closer, and John registered a flicker of surprised heat before the sooty lashes began to flutter shut. The man meant to kiss him! 

At this, John put his hands on the man’s chest and shoved bodily. Surprised, he stumbled backward with a faint cry.

“What are you doing?” John blurted out stupidly, and instantly cursed himself.

The man’s eyes flickered, a split second of disappointment registered before his smooth tones drawled, “I should think that would be obvious. I was merely thanking you for last night.” 

“No, that’s not.. we didn’t… I’m not a sodomite!” 

The man cocked one eyebrow, obviously amused before clearly deciding to humor him.

“No, of course not. However, your physical arousal, dilated pupils, flushed cheeks... oh, and hiring a male prostitute speak to the contrary.” He shook himself out, managing to look smooth and unruffled. “Now, about the fee for last night…”

“No!” John stammered, unaccountably embarrassed. “You’ve got it wrong, we didn’t sleep together!”

“Mm? Were you one of the men who desires comfort? Hires a boy for emotional intimacy, but not physical?” 

John didn’t know you could do that. He’d spent so many lonely nights in his rooms, perhaps he would have liked to buy a connection with someone else. He considered this for a moment, before a flash of shame burned through him. 

“No,” John said, fighting to keep his voice steady. “Not one of those, either. Here, would you like a cup of tea? Or a sandwich? I promise, I won’t take advantage of you.” 

The man eyed him dubiously, somehow conveying scorn, wariness, and hunger with the curl of his lips.

“Here.” John proffered a cup of tea. “I’m sorry, can we begin again? I’m John Watson.”

“The name is Sherlock Lebeau,” the man said, reaching for his tea and deliberately brushing his fingers against John’s. Sherlock the Handsome, John translated mentally, with a suppressed snort. Probably not his real name. 

Sherlock took a sip of the tea and leaned disinterestedly against the wall. 

“So, Doctor, why am I here? Pardon, do you prefer Doctor, Captain, or Monsieur?” 

“John would be fine, Monsieur Lebeau.” he answered, surprised. “I'm sorry, are we acquainted?”

The sly smile broadened, warping the edges of his carmine lips. 

“Sherlock, please. No, to my knowledge, we've never met. Tell me, John, have you kidnapped me?” Now a little pouting moue. He seemed very aware of John’s purely objective fixation on his lips and was milking it for all he could, the bastard.

John mentally gathered his wits about him and snorted, retorting with false bravado, “That would be more trouble than it’s worth, you coquette. No, I didn’t kidnap you. I saw you in an alley being mauled by a drunk. You didn’t appear to desire his favors, so I chased the fellow off. It was getting quite cold, so I took you home and put you to bed.” He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Your honor is intact.”

The moue curled into a real smile for a split second, and then was wiped off his face. 

“Really? You just wanted to help? A good Samaritan, hm? Or are you one of Mycroft’s minions? Who do you work for? What do you want? People don’t just do kind things without a reason.” 

“Perhaps you need better friends, then.”

A small hmmph was heard. “Or any friends, I suppose.” Sherlock said wryly. 

John grimaced. That was a piece of unexpected honesty from a man who he was fairly certain had said nothing true up to this point. Sherlock seemed to realize this as well, visibly retreating.

“I’m not working for anyone. You just looked like you needed help.” John said hastily.

“You carried me all the way from… was it the Folies-Bergere last night?” A noise of affirmative. “All the way from the Folies-Bergere with no help and your leg injury. You put up a stranger in your own bed, fetched him a glass of water for morning, and fed him. What was in it for you?”

John shifted uncomfortably. “So maybe you remind me of someone.” 

“Your sister? Come now, I hardly think that saving me from a life of dishonor and dissolution would help her alcoholism.” 

“How on earth-”

“The letters in your parlor. A few notes from a woman. If it was your mother or fiance, your rooms would be cleaner, in case they ever came to call on you. The handwriting was shaky, ink smeared and improperly blotted. Left handed, your sister is, just as you are. The smearing is inconsistent with mere left handed ineptitude, suggesting a tremor suggesting alcoholism.” 

Sherlock leaned back, seemingly reflexively. He had said more than he intended, and now he would get a beating again. Funny how people didn’t wish their prostitutes to be intelligent.

“Amazing.” 

“Sorry?”

“Just.. that was amazing. Is that how you knew I was in the war and a medic?” 

“Shoulder injury, military bearing, habit of lining your boots up next to your bed. Small rooms suggest a military pension. Pension means honorably discharged, and relatively recently, so you served in the Franco-Prussian war. You aren’t advertising your military background in any way, no medals on display or uniforms hanging up, which leads me to believe you were also involved in the Paris Commune, on the side of the rebels I’d presume.”

“Fantastic. And the medic?” 

“Your seemingly genuine and irrepressible urge to help people, coupled with the medic’s bag hidden under your bed.”

John shook his head in amazement. 

“Simply brilliant.”

Sherlock's brows lifted fractionally, and his expression was a cross between suspicion and astonishment. Was he unused to being complimented? “Thank you. Now, what do you want with me? Even a decorated medic is not so selfless as to take a stranger home with absolutely no expectations of recompense.”

John surrendered. Taking a deep, faintly embarrassed breath, he confessed “I want to paint you.” 

A delicate brow arched. 

“Paint me?”

“Yes.” John stammered. “I did a few rudimentary sketches just now. You have such fascinating features and I’m sorry that I did it without your permission but you are a very striking man-” He abruptly shut up, realizing he’d said far more than he’d intended.

“Show me.” was all the stranger said.

John crossed the room, rifled through his sketchbook, and held out the drawing of Sherlock’s face. A sharp intake of breath, and the paper was snatched from his hands. John waited anxiously for the verdict.

\--------

Sherlock was faintly amused. 

The silly man was sublimating his obvious desire for Sherlock into a creative impetus, how interesting. 

As if he could paint him, John with his diddly little landscapes and paint in tubes. 

He coolly demanded to see the drawing. Perhaps he would agree, if the drawing was any good. He could use a new base of operations, John’s rooms were far more centrally located than the dump Sherlock had rented. Having a trained medic and soldier on hand would be a definite plus as well.

He resolutely ignored the little voice that jeered in his head. He didn’t desire John Watson, he’d just made the man's acquaintance. The flirting and unnecessary touching was purely to convince him that he was a prostitute. He didn’t find him oddly fascinating, this little man with the wooden cane and kind eyes, he was merely doing what came naturally: observing and playing a role. 

John held out the sketch, and all of a sudden, Sherlock’s focus narrowed onto the piece of slightly crumpled paper. Outlined in charcoal was Sherlock, clearly and undeniably Sherlock. He grabbed the paper and brought it to his nose. 

He'd never seen himself asleep before, or looking so innocent and vulnerable. His brow was smooth, his eyes were shut, his mouth uncharacteristically open and silent. He didn't even realize he was capable of looking that relaxed and happy. 

He dimly noted that the technique was excellent, every detail of his face down to the mole on his neck was rendered perfectly and the proportions were utterly precise in every way, before an unexpected surge of emotion washed through him. 

This was Sherlock, yes, but not the same man he saw in the mirror. This Sherlock was smiling softly in his sleep, lips parted ever so slightly, lashes bold against cheek. This Sherlock wasn’t coarsely sexual like his disguise, nor haughty and aloof like his normal persona. This Sherlock was beautiful. 

\------------

John saw the wash of emotion flicker quickly behind the stunning eyes, before being wiped away. 

“This is… quite good.” Sherlock said coolly. “Quite a likeness. You must have spent some time on it.”

“Only twenty or so minutes past the hour.” John lied and shifted restlessly. Seeing the drawing next to Sherlock’s real face made him want to do one better, to paint the range of expressions he had seen from the man. “So. Would you do it? Would you model for me?”

Sherlock hesitated. Internally, he mused that John Watson was far more observant than he had credited him. He wasn’t sure if he wanted someone as skilled at looking at people as John Watson was looking at him for hours, perhaps seeing behind the veneer and not liking what he saw. He glanced down at the paper again.

“And of course I’d pay you,” he heard dimly. “You could take breaks often. If you’re uncomfortable with being painted in the nude, I would understand, and you wouldn’t have to. I would keep the studio warm and--” 

Interesting, Sherlock thought, an artist willing to sacrifice his artistic vision for the sake of the comfort of the model.

“I’ll do it.” Sherlock said decisively, interrupting John’s nervous prattle. His face cleared instantly, and he beamed at Sherlock, who was startled to find himself smiling back. 

“Wonderful! Come round tomorrow at half past noon?” 

Sherlock smirked and maintained eye contact while he purred “I’ll be there.” Leaning around John, he grabbed half a sandwich and slid out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> coquette: flirt
> 
> All the hullaballoo about making acquaintances: In this time period, if you hadn't been introduced by a mutual friend, you weren't allowed to even talk, let alone seduce them in their kitchen. It was terrible manners.
> 
> There. They've finally met. I don't think there's anything more that needs historical clarification so... Tell me what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

For John, the day passed pleasantly enough. 

He ate his bread and cheese, put the finishing touches on his painting of the Rue St. Michel, cleaned his windows while he waited for it to dry, and then carried the painting to the market where he promptly sold it to Madame Hudson, the widow who owned the boulangerie-patisserie across the street. 

He had quite a fondness for Madame Hudson, so he gave her the painting for far less than he normally sold his work for. She gave him a shrewd look when he acquiesced too early in the haggling process, and asked him to help her carry the painting back to the boulangerie. When he agreed, she promptly stuffed him full of brioche and gossip and sent him home with a fresh baguette. 

Once safely ensconced in his studio, he started sketching out a new painting of the Pont Neuf, but gave it up as the clean lines of the bridge started to morph into the sweep of Sherlock’s forehead curving into his temple the longer John worked. 

Putting it aside with a sigh and a stretch, he nibbled on some baguette, took a brief but brisk constitutional, and tucked himself into bed with a book. When he was tired, he blew out the candle and went to bed, falling asleep with the long forgotten feeling of excitement he remembered from his childhood: the anticipation of the night before Saint Nicholas’s day after leaving out his shoes for presents. 

\-------------------

Sherlock did not have such a peaceful day. 

Oh, it started out well, as most bad days do. He sauntered home while munching on his sandwich for which he garnered shocked looks, something he always enjoyed. 

Honestly, the social taboo about eating and walking was just silly. It was efficient to combine tasks, and Sherlock, with his impeccable grasp of table manners, could certainly delicately enjoy a sandwich while walking and not choke or spill on himself like an infant. 

He was feeling smugly superior to everyone who was unable to eat while walking, the sun was shining and the flowers in the Tuileries were in bloom. Normally, these things had no real bearing on Sherlock, his circumstances, or any case he was on, and thus would have been judged irrelevant. 

But today, these things conspired to put him in a good mood, he told himself. Nothing to do with his new acquaintance. 

It was a funny thing, that drawing. Not a perfect likeness, no. But there was something there, a certain beauty he was unused to seeing in himself. 

He paused to use a pane of glass in a shop’s window as a mirror, mentally noting the large panes. The shopkeep must have recently come into some money to have such large pieces of glass newly installed. He was certainly attractive, he knew that and used it like a finely wrought stiletto, but beautiful? He’d never considered himself so. But in John's sketch he’d looked positively Byronic. 

A flicker of movement reflected in the warped glass and he stiffened minutely. Two men across the street, watching him with careful eyes. 

Ah, a tail! If he wasn’t a blasphemous atheist and a believer in pure science, he would have thought that someone up above was conspiring to make his day wonderful.

Giving no indication he’d noticed the men --one recently widowed, not particularly upset about it, perhaps syphilitic, ex soldier? one younger, scar on left cheek, tattoo peeking out from right wrist, both held themselves like military but hadn’t seen action for a while, valets?-- he casually straightened, and instead of turning left on Rue St. Catherine, he turned right. 

He walked along, stopped at a fruit seller’s stall and bought a pear for a few sous. Tossing it up and down, mind humming, he sauntered casually down the street, popping into one shop, than another, always with the men half a block behind him. 

Another left, a right, and he was at Angelo’s charcuterie. He ducked inside, greeted the burly man cursorily, and as soon as he was out of view of the windows, bolted through the store, out the back door, into an alley, and was lost in the winding mazes of Paris’s back alleys. He was perhaps more intimately familiar with these crooked streets than with the creases and scars of his own hands. Nodding to the sundry members of his homeless network and tossing the pear he still carried to Marie, a particularly useful flower girl, he made it home without incident.

Sherlock’s rooms were at the top of a four story tenement building, brick, full of squalling babies, coughing grandmothers, and the faint smell of cabbages, soup and chamber pots. 

The rooms were perhaps not as wretched as they should have been, considering that Sherlock was posing as a prostitute without a souteneur. Being a whore without a pimp was unusual, but not impossible, and although it might draw attention, it was worth it to be able to work alone. 

It was almost dark as he climbed the stairs, and his mind was working busily. The gaslights flickered in the hall, and he dug around in his pocket for his key. The fourth floor seemed unusually quiet, but Sherlock mentally chalked that up to the lovely weather. 

Opening his door, he was not as on guard as he should have been, which might have accounted for the ease with which a strong pair of arms grabbed him and yanked him inside, slamming the door. 

Instinctively, he fought back, squirming and kicking as hard as he could. Before he could get to any of the knives hidden on his person, the man holding him was behind him, and had both his arms pinned behind him. He couldn’t even reach the knife at his low back, the man was holding him so tightly. Sherlock was impressed despite himself.

Another man stepped out of the shadows, cap pulled low on his face, and with no fanfare, suckerpunched him in the stomach. 

The air was expelled from Sherlock’s lungs in a mighty whoosh and he struggled frantically to draw breath, internally berating himself for not keeping a better guard. 

Were these the two men who were following him? It was hard to tell in the darkness with the man punching him in the face. A fist landed on his cheekbone, and he felt the skin tear. Another on his mouth, and his lip split. 

The warm blood trickled down his face as the beating continued, methodologically and coldly. After another solid blow to the side of his head, he hung there, pretending to have passed out. After few more hits they dropped him. 

“Stop asking questions, putain, or we’ll shut that pretty mouth of yours for good.” A low voice growled. With a final kick to the ribs, the men left through the fire escape, the same way they must have come. 

Sherlock lay there, blood trickling down his face and pain thrumming through his body, but paying no attention to any of it. He was far away, frantically trying to figure out who they were, who they worked for, and how they’d learned he’d been asking questions. 

He was reassured to realize that if the thugs had known that it was Sherlock Holmes they were attacking, they would have kidnapped and ransomed him or blackmailed him for posing as a sodomite and a prostitute. The beating he’d received was one you’d deal out to an uppity whore for not knowing her place. He was gratified to know that he was still a step ahead of them, whoever they were. 

Well made boots, he’d noticed while they were kicking him, but somehow they didn’t seem like gentlemen. Were they in someone's employ? Perhaps a drug dealer or noble's muscle?

The pain was beginning to kick in and Sherlock grabbed the leg of his rickety chair, slowly pulling himself up. 

It was enough of a puzzle for his slightly addled brain to figure out how to distribute his weight so the chair wouldn’t break or topple, and so he could rise. He thought a bit blearily that perhaps when all this whore malarky was over, he should like to take on a nice circus mystery. Perhaps be a tightrope walker, and travel with the gypsies. 

He heaved himself the rest of the way up --sometimes he desperately hated being tall: there was more of him to hit-- and luckily had the presence of mind to lock the doors and windows before he staggered to his bed, throwing himself down without further ado. 

There would be no contemplation tonight, just blessed unconsciousness. It had been a long day. 

\---------------

The next morning, Sherlock was awoken by a shaft of sunlight spearing through the window and directly into his eyes. For the second day in a row, he woke with his head throbbing and his body bruised and sore. 

Scowling, he slumped out of bed, checking his pocket watch. Half past eleven, almost time to meet John. 

Sherlock resolutely pushed away the tiny thrill in his belly, threw on a clean shirt, scrubbed his face free of crusted blood, and strode down the stairs, dodging babushkas, toddlers and cats as he went. 

It was another beautiful day in Paris but this time Sherlock was very careful to stay on his guard. His ribs twinged with each step, and he cursed himself for his complacency the night before. He had intuited that he had been getting close with the rumours about the Comte de Chambord's bastard son, but in his excitement he must have let something slip.

Before he knew it, he was at John’s rooms. He rapped firmly on the door and it opened promptly.

“Sherlock! Won’t you come in?” John beamed up at him, looking freshly scrubbed and awake. His smile dropped as he took in Sherlock’s bruised and bloodied visage. 

Sherlock turned his head away, and pushed into the room. He didn’t want to loll about on the stoop where anyone could see him.

“You’re hurt.” John said stupidly. 

Sherlock rolled his eyes and threw himself on the sofa. Of course he was, it didn’t take a genius to see that. Honestly, if John was going to stand around gaping and making painfully obvious remarks, Sherlock had underestimated his intelligence. 

John disappeared and returned with his battered medic’s bag, Sherlock perking up as he noticed that the bottom of John’s canvas bag was stained with blood. With steady, experienced hands John wiped Sherlock’s cuts with spirits. 

“Are there others?” Sherlock nodded, impressed that John was conversant in the new germ theory. Kept up with advances in medicine despite working as a painter. Interesting. 

“My ribs.” He stripped off his waistcoat, down to his thin white cotton shirt. He unbuttoned it with only the hint of a fumble, baring his bruised ribs.

John’s eyes sharpened as he took in the extent of his injuries. He took Sherlock’s wrist and examined the bruises there, left from when Sherlock had strained against his captor. 

“You were held and beaten. This is no tumble down a staircase or bar fight. This is someone trying to cause you pain for pain’s sake.”

Sherlock hummed a vague affirmative as John gently probed his ribs. He sucked in a sharp breath as John touched one that twinged far more than the others.

“One cracked rib, the rest bruised. There’s nothing I can do for it besides tell you not to stress it. Your face doesn’t seem to need sutures, but I’ll fetch you a piece of meat for the bruise if you’ll consent to hold a cool cloth to your head to help with the headache…” 

Sherlock frowned, surprised. He hadn’t mentioned that he had a headache. John seemed to read his mind. 

“Yes, I know you have a headache, your eyes are shut almost all the way and your shoulders are hunched. One doesn’t have to be a detective to know that!” John clapped him lightly on the shoulder and strode off to find a steak as Sherlock’s eyes flew open. 

A joke? or was he found out? A joke, it seemed, as John didn’t seem to be acting differently.

John returned with a cut of meat he must have been saving to cook, as impoverished painters seldom kept flank steak, the best cut of meat someone of John’s income could afford, around for bruises. He gently laid it over Sherlock’s throbbing eye. 

John had also brought a bowl of water and a cloth back with him, and Sherlock marveled at how cool and soothing his fingers were as they wiped the dried blood off his face. 

He began to meekly protest the mollycoddling, but subsided as he realized that it actually did feel nice to be taken care of, as foreign as the concept was. 

John rinsed the cloth and folded it, laying it over Sherlock’s eyes, and he instinctively tensed. He reminded himself that John had twice taken him in and nursed him back to health and that he found the little man trustworthy, but his hackles still raised at being blinded. 

He focused on his hearing instead, listening to John tap thump his way to the kettle and begin to make tea. The halting gait returned with a cup of tea, which he placed in Sherlock’s outstretched hand. 

“Thank you. You didn’t have to.” Sherlock muttered. 

“Nonsense.” John replied easily. “Happy to help. Now. What happened?” 

Sherlock fidgeted as he recounted the tale, happy to have the cloth to block him from the probing faded blue eyes. There was a sigh when he was done.

“What did they want with you?” 

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people don’t take kindly to their sexual playthings being more intelligent than they.” Sherlock lied haughtily. He felt rather than saw John tense and then force himself to relax.

“Well, I personally rather like it. Was it a customer that did that to you?” 

“Not exactly. I’m not quite sure who was behind the attack.” Sherlock mentally filed the comment away under John's Sexual Preferences.

Another sigh.

“Please Sherlock, take care of yourself. I’m a little concerned.”

“I’m a grown man. I can handle myself.”

“Obviously.” John said wryly, and Sherlock’s lip curled.

“Now, are you up to posing today? You can stay just like that while I draw you, I need to get familiar with your form.”

Sherlock found it very easy to play the part of the willing lorette. He drew down the cheesecloth and locked eyes with John, smoldering at him. John blushed heavily. 

“Not like that! I’m not… oh sod it. Are you amenable?”

“Mm, yes. I’ll just be thinking. Don’t be concerned if you call my name and receive no reply.” 

John assured him that he wouldn’t, and the tap thumping drew away to fetch his sketchbook. Sherlock steepled his fingers and retreated into his mind palace.

\----------------------

As John rummaged about for his sketchbook, his hands clenched and unclenched. 

Patching up the younger man had somewhat soothed the inner rage he’d felt at seeing the man beaten and bloodied, but he was still tense. 

Sherlock’s flawless skin marred with purple bruises blooming under the skin was a poetic abomination, and his gashed face was like someone slashing the Mona Lisa, in John’s opinion. And he was certain that the man was hiding something. 

But John knew that it was none of his business, and as Sherlock had protested quite rightly, he was a grown man. They were barely acquainted a full day, anyway.

Acquaintances flew into protective rages for each other, didn’t they?

Returning with the sketchbook, John pulled up a chair and sat heavily. He took in the marred beauty of Sherlock’s face, the bruises stained across his prominent ribs under his still open shirt, and shivered as he turned to a clean page. 

Picking up his charcoal, he deftly captured the careless loll of the mussed, curly head, the elegance of the fingers steepled under the aristocratic nose, the drape of the cheesecloth obscuring the eyes and the smudges of dried blood that remained. 

John began to draw faster and faster. He would call this one Justice in la belle France, and model Sherlock as a bruised and battered blindfolded Lady Justice, sprawled and beaten, with her scales fallen beside her. It may be too subversive for the Academy, but his friend Courbet would certainly appreciate it. 

John’s charcoal flicked across the paper, nimbly recording the perfect, fragile looking bones under Sherlock’s skin. He mused to himself that Sherlock may look delicate, he actually possessed some sinewy muscle. Recalling when those self same defined arms had been wrapped around his waist, he suppressed a girlish shiver. 

Tightening his lips with irritation at his body's betrayal, he turned his attention to the long legs sprawling out of the chair. One of Sherlock’s trouser legs had ridden up, baring a flash of pale skin and ankle. John’s eyes widened.

Oh my. What a finely turned ankle. Purely from an artistic point of view, he added quickly to himself. Still, his cheeks felt a little hot.

Control yourself, Watson, he told himself firmly. You’ve seen many an ankle, and a lot more besides. This shouldn’t affect you like you were a mewling boy and it was the first one you’d ever seen. Nevertheless, he sketched the exposed strip of skin with quiet reverence. 

He fetched a knife to whittle down the point of his charcoal, adding detail to his line and tone drawing. As the image began to emerge, undeniably Sherlock and as affecting as Sherlock himself slumped beaten and bruised in front of him, John’s face creased into a slight smile. He finished it up, adding buttons, fingernails and other details, and on a whim, sketched in a scale. 

Lovely. He put the drawing down.

“Sherlock?” No reply. John frowned. 

John flipped to a new page and mentally shrugged. He would take what he could get, he thought, and began a study of Sherlock’s steepled fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boulangerie-patisserie: shop that sells bread and pastries. Bakery.
> 
> Saint Nicholas's day: My birthday, Dec. 6th! Old European traditions entail that if you leave out your shoes, Saint Nicholas (Santa, basically) will fill them with treats! 
> 
> When I was in France a few years ago, the taboo against eating and walking was still in effect, although much less so.
> 
> Charcuterie: butchery 
> 
> Soutener: pimp
> 
> Lorette: 1870s term for prostitute, because the ladies of the night would hang around Notre Dame de Lorettes, which was a church.
> 
> Putain: whore, slut (I'm doing this instead of studying for my French final...)
> 
> Raw meat was used to treat bruises, like a modern day ice pack.
> 
> Haha period accurate ankle worship...
> 
> Again, many thanks to the lovely callous-and-strange who beta'd! 
> 
> Also, you can follow me on tumblr at honeyshoshana.tumblr.com!


	5. Chapter 5

As Sherlock closed his eyes, the scratching of the charcoal, John’s even breaths, the fishwives shrieking at the market down the street, the rattle of the carriage horses’ hooves on asphaltum, and the distant strains of the accordion being played for a few centimes receded as he settled into his mind palace. Sherlock’s mind thrummed like a locomotive as he flicked through the facts of the case so far. 

One knee, found by a baker by the ruins of the Bastille. 

Half a hip, discovered by a street child at the Charenton Asylum. 

A neck, stumbled across by a doctor at the Hospice de la Vieillesse Hommes. 

Pieces of three different corpses with their only intersection being the place of discovery: asylums and prisons all. 

The neck had been his lucky break, he reflected. How much even Sherlock could tell from a knee and half a hip was limited, especially since the murderer seemed to have a sterile sort of madness about him. The lumps of flesh had been carefully vivisected with a scalpel and then hacked about with a saw of some sort. 

To disguise the evidence? To set Sherlock off the scent? To spread a panic? Purely because the killer enjoyed a good temper tantrum? To tenderize before cooking? Unlikely, but possible. Not enough data. 

From the knee and the hip Sherlock had deduced that there were two victims, both male, and both poor. 

The hip had been discovered first by a street child’s dog. The boy had thought the dog had stolen from a charcuterie until he attempted to pinch it off the dog to eat. He had realized that it was not pork or beef just in time. 

The knee was slightly more recognizable as human and the Sûreté had thankfully picked up on the sudden hail of body parts. It was then that Lestrade had called on him at his apartment to set him on the trail of this ridiculous crime. 

Sherlock silently cursed both Lestrade and his own bloodhound nature every time he was forced to seduce an informant or pick lice out of his hair but he grudgingly admitted that Lestrade had been good to a bored, posh addict throwing his life away. He had enlisted Sherlock in Vidocq’s special police force, former criminals who went undercover to solve crime. 

Sherlock had to admit that the force did work, crime rates in Paris had gone down by 40 per cent after they were introduced. He credited his usual brilliance with at least 20 per cent of the change. It was only this particular case that had left him stymied. 

But after the neck was found, pieces had finally started to slot into place. It started with a flood of comprehension as it usually did, with Sherlock spouting nigh prescient deductions to the entire Sûreté before unexpectedly running dry. 

He’d deduced that the link between the victims was their choice of work, all were male prostitutes and approximately his age. This was yet a third body, shaved the day of his death, suggesting an assignment. No signs of a struggle, but there wasn’t much struggling one could do with just one’s neck. Habitually wore jewelry, a lover’s trinket perhaps? Longer hair, a bit of a dandy. A faint shadow that could be a love bite, but the flesh was too dappled with cuts to tell for certain. Could be a kept man, could be a maison du tolerance employee-- 

and suddenly Sherlock stopped. Lestrade, who had been taking notes, looked up, confused. 

Sherlock had blinked. That was it. He had nothing more. 

“Is that it?” Lestrade had asked disbelievingly. It had rankled. 

“You gave me twenty square centimetres of bloodied flesh and gristle. I gave you age, gender, profession and jewelry. It’s hacked beyond recognition. I’d like to see the incompetent wastrels you call detectives get even a fourth of that!” Sherlock had retorted aggrievedly before spinning on his heel and exiting, frock coat swirling dramatically behind him. 

He had been rattled, he remembered, and calling in his homeless network had uncovered nothing of value. No one missing, no extra body pieces floating about, nothing more dangerous in the streets than a spooked carthorse. 

He’d become desperate. 

There was only so much even the great Sherlock Holmes could puzzle out without a crime scene, body, cause of death, witnesses, family, or suspects. 

So he’d taken matters into his own hands. He’d called off any male prostitutes in his network and warned them. He’d dug up his most down market, seductive clothes, rented a squalid dump and settled in for some good old fashioned sleuthing. 

Sherlock was a naturally able flirt, and very good at getting people to talk, and even with his dogged pursuit of scraps of information, slim, beautiful figure and prodigious charm, he’d stumbled across nothing but the very faintest whisper about the son of the Comte de Chambord having some unusual tastes. 

His lips tightened a bit. The day after the rumors had come to his ears, he had come across Wiggins, an informant that Sherlock valued both for his brevity in speech and quick legs, lying bloodied in the gutter. He was alive, luckily, and Sherlock had taken him to his older sister in their cellar room and left him there with a generous 30 francs for treatment. The girl had been astonished and teary-eyed in her gratitude. It was medical care, rent and food for both of them clutched in her grubby fist.

Say what you liked about Sherlock, he took care of his own. 

And now the men had come after him. Interesting. He would have to be more circumspect in his inquiries. He made a mental note to visit Wiggins in disguise soon, ostensibly to check up on him but really to see if the men who’d beaten him matched the one’s who had attacked Sherlock. 

There was something niggling at him about the placement of the remains. He called up his mental map of Paris and found no patterns. Not equidistant from anything, no clear next strike. Asylums and prisons. Is it an escapee from either? No breakouts recently. 

He needed more data.

Sherlock scowled and dragged himself free of his mind palace. 

John was still sitting by his side, drawing. Sherlock hadn’t moved enough for mere mortals to notice so he took a quiet moment to observe John. 

No tension around the eyes, relaxed neck and shoulders, almost dreamy expression-- fascinating. It seemed that John was in his own version of a mind palace. Sherlock’s esteem of the man ticked up a notch. 

He swung his legs over the chair soundlessly and faced John, waiting for him to look up. When he did, John startled violently. The tension returned as Sherlock beckoned for the sketchbook. John passed it over wordlessly. Sherlock flipped it open and there he was again. 

John had captured, in his smudgy, charcoaled way, the indomitable spirit of a bruised and bloodied Sherlock. It was a nigh perfect portrait, as John had already shown himself capable of. 

Sherlock noted that the cheesecloth over his eyes had morphed into a blindfold and that there was a rattle of discarded scales on the floor next to him. 

Sherlock as Lady Justice? He muffled a little snort. If only John knew quite how apt that was. 

The image was striking. Subversive. Sherlock didn’t count himself as any judge of art, preferring to stick to cold science, but as he looked at the proud, battered avatar of justice he lent his image to, a unsettled feeling in his stomach surprised him. The same cold, determined feeling had risen in him at the end of the Bloody Week. A cock of his head as understanding dawned. “You were a medic in the Paris commune. Is this…” He gestured awkwardly, unsure of the emotions and the artistic terminology. 

“A reflection on it?” John seemed surprised, and contemplative. He began to tidy his supplies, packing them away. 

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

Sherlock contemplated him. 

“You must have seen a lot of death.” A pain crossed John’s face, fleeting. He muttered an assent. 

Intriguing. “What did you do in the Paris Commune?” John’s mouth twisted wryly. 

“How am I to know that you’re not a spy, sent to trick me into admitting how many other soldiers I killed?" 

"It's been six years, John."

"Paris was under martial law until just a few years ago, and the other Communards are still in exile in New Caledonia.” John shot back. "It wasn't that long ago." 

Sherlock considered this for a while. 

“I was there. I was--” He was about to say one of the university freethinkers that drove the ideological fervor of the new society before remembering his disguise. He quickly regrouped. 

“I was an assistant. I helped with the freethinkers.” 

John looked a little disbelieving. 

“You might have known me through Courbet?” As soon as Sherlock ventured the tentative connection, John’s forced calm snapped into a steely wariness.

“I told you nothing about that. Who are you?” 

“A lowly lorette, nothing more. I ran errands and since I can write, I scribed for the philosophers. I assumed you knew Courbet, the Impressionist movement isn’t that large.” Sherlock was now regretting showing off as he seemed to dig himself deeper with every sentence. The little army doctor was still scowling at him and it was more worrying than it should have been.

“I never mentioned my artistic affiliation.” 

“Paint in tubes, John.” Sherlock answered exasperatedly. “They aren’t that common. New, and all. Mostly painters who prefer to paint en plein air use them. Like Courbet. And you.” 

John’s eyes were narrowed. 

“Pretty clever for a so called lowly lorette, aren’t you? Not only are you familiar with your artistic movements, you're also conversant on current artistic technology and all the petty scandals and gossip. How do you know about all this?” 

Dammit, Sherlock thought furiously. John was cleverer than he had supposed, and Sherlock just had to show off. Now John was suspicious, and rightly so. 

Time for a distraction. 

Thinking quickly, he gave a throaty rumble of laughter, and paired it with an elaborate stretch. 

Tilting his head back to bare his milky throat, he raised his defined arms and coiled his body sinuously, visibly sensually luxuriating in the stretch. 

His shirt was still unbuttoned and rode up on his flat stomach. He used that to his best advantage, bringing his arms down and behind him, letting his head fall back and arching his back in reverse, like a satiated cat. 

Running his fingers through his tousled curls and leaning forward, he made direct, smoldering eye contact. 

“I’m very, very observant, docteur captaine et Monsieur John.” He purposefully purred his name in his best baritone, and was rewarded with a tiny snort. 

“And I can’t help wanting to know more about my rescuer. Is it a crime to be curious?” The little moue again, that had worked well last time. 

John seemed entirely dazzled. His eyes had glazed over and he licked his lips. 

Mentally congratulating himself on a seduction gone well, Sherlock plucked the sketchbook out of John’s hands again, purposefully brushing his fingers alongside his and opened it randomly. 

“You do beautiful work, John.” He said entirely sincerely, gazing at his remote, bloodied, prideful face in the book. Perhaps he could learn from this oddly observant little man.

“How do you do it? How do you see all this?” 

John shook himself visibly, forcibly pulling himself from Sherlock’s orbit and after a second, he replied with only a hint of smugness.

“You may have sharp eyes... but you see, you do not observe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asphaltum: early version of asphalt.
> 
> the Sûreté: Guys this is absolutely perfect and fascinating so bear with me. This is the police force that was the inspiration for Scotland Yard and the FBI. It was started in in Paris in 1812 by Eugene Francois Vidocq, who recognized the need for a new kind of police work. These guys recruited former criminals to go undercover and solve crime. It's so perfect for Sherlock. The numbers he cites are also correct, they did really good work.
> 
> Bloody Week: the Semaine Sanglante. The week at the end of the Paris Commune where the French government attacked the Parisian rebels and basically slaughtered them indiscriminately in the streets.
> 
> Courbet: An impressionist deeply involved in the Commune. He pulled down a grand and important column and was hunted down after the quashing and forced to pay for his involvement.
> 
> Paint in tubes, John: before the advent of paint in tubes, artists had to mix their own paints, which didn't lend itself to painting en plein air (outside). With the new invention came a new way of painting and a new way of looking at the world: Impressionism.
> 
> So this is my first case fic, and my first Sherlock fic ever. So be loves and let me know how I'm doing? Tell me if you spot any plot holes?
> 
> Oh, and happy end of finals week!


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock left John’s rooms with a swing in his step. He was to return again the next day, and his belly was full of secret, joyful anticipation. Sherlock’s rather prodigious inner vanity had begun to crave the admiration evident in John’s drawings. 

He couldn’t wait to be immortalized in paint. 

It was an abiding shame that John only knew Sherlock as a pretty face and couldn’t appreciate his dazzling intellect as well, he thought. 

Angling his steps towards Wiggins’ cellar room, Sherlock inquired cursorily after the boy's health. From his bleary account, Sherlock was able to confirm that the men who had beaten Wiggins and the men who’d attacked him were two and the same. From Wiggins' fuzzy recollection, it seemed that they were also the ones tailing Sherlock. 

Mildly disappointed that there only seemed to be one enemy at work, Sherlock left, after carefully slipping 10 more francs into Wiggins’ sister’s pinafore without her noticing. He needed the pickpocketing practice, he grumpily defended his generosity to himself. 

By god, if the silly girl didn't notice a great big man like him slipping money into her apron then she needed all the help she could get.

Hands in pockets, he strode home. It was beginning to darken, and he drafted a battle plan in his mind. He needed more information. 

Once in his paltry, dank rooms, he slipped into his tightest trousers and sauciest ascot and carefully arranged his curly mess of hair to hide his bruises, slicking it to the side foppishly. He tentatively applied a little rouge to his cheeks, attempting to hide his pallor. 

Tonight, Sherlock was tarting himself up proper. 

It was imperative that he follow up on the rumor about the Comte de Chambord’s bastard son before he could go to ground. It was unlikely that the news of a nosy lorette would cause him to forfeit his murderous spree, but he’d noticed that madmen were very seldom rational. 

One more peek in the cracked mirror for vanity's sake, and he trotted down the stairs. He had a bar to captivate.

Sherlock took a deep breath before he swung open the door to the gambling den, mentally shifting all the gears and pushing all the buttons that dropped his gaze, softened his spine, flushed his cheeks and muted his acerbic tongue. 

Hips swaying demurely, lashes fluttering, and eyes cast down, anyone who knew him as Sherlock Holmes, eccentric younger brother of Mycroft Holmes, peer of the realm, would have a hard time recognizing him. 

Slinking meekly through the rough denizens of the den and dodging pinching fingers with practiced ease, he spotted one of the young libertines that made up the social circle of Hugh de Chambord. 

Sherlock's shy smile suddenly grew sharp teeth. Reliable sources said that the young viscomte had a weakness for pretty young boys. 

Taking short steps and hunching his shoulders forward, trying to look as naif and innocent as possible, he reached the bar and leaned on it facing the room, letting his gaze stick on the young libertine. 

His prey had money troubles, his dandyish clothes were clearly remade from last season. Gambling debts, Sherlock guessed by the pack of cards sticking out of the pocket of his frock coat. Drinking lightly this evening, only two glasses of absinthe heavily sugared, judging by the thin skim visible in the bottom of the glass. 

Couldn’t afford him, excellent. 

But impecuniousness wouldn’t stop him from pinching Sherlock’s ample bottom, oh no. He knew the type. His derriere was a magnet for inebriated young noblemen willing to experiment with such a fetching boy. He’d collected a sheaf of bad poetry just in the past week. 

The one he favored from sheer perversity was a sonnet to his arse: the twin planets of your sweet arse blind me with their heavenly radiance was one particularly memorable line. 

With a mental cringe, Sherlock swayed those selfsame globes over to the young nobleman’s table, and flirtatiously pretended to have dropped his glove. The young man gallantly picked it up for him, and as soon as he looked up into the innocent eyes of the plush lipped, blushing boy, he was lost. 

In no time at all, Sherlock was on the man’s lap, drinking in his words with seemingly adoring ears. There wasn’t much news the man could impart to him, but he learned that the Hugh de Chambord had in fact been picking up boy lorettes, and that he would be at a ball given by friends of Mycroft the next week. 

With information gleaned, Sherlock excused himself blushingly to go to the cabinet de toilette and slipped out the back door. He was wasted as an academic when clearly his purpose in life was to tread the boards, he thought to himself 

He stood for a moment in the reeking alleyway, taking deep gulps of air, and allowed himself a moment to slip out of character. 

Back straight, he shook off the cloying submissive innocence that characterized his disguise and let his face slip back into its habitual impassive scowl. He stretched naturally, not to further a flirtatious aim but merely to work out kinks in his back. 

He accepted the utility of the disguise, but after too long inside Sherlock LeBeau's skin, Sherlock Holmes began to tear his hair out.

Feeling the need to distance himself further from the sweet, foppish, giggling boy, he spat disgustingly into the gutter. He slouched proud and haughty in the shadows for a moment, desperately wishing for a cigarette before he grudgingly began to slip back into character for the walk home. 

Every step Sherlock took forward was another slide into LeBeau's delicate skin. If anyone had been watching, they would have been amazed to see this fierce older man, full of disdain and ennui, transform into a sweet, fresh-faced and submissive boy. 

The face he presented the puddles of streetlight and shadowy alleys was meek and pretty as he prowled home.

Perhaps too meek. A long arm shot out of a doorway and gripped him harshly. Sherlock stumbled a bit, trying to wrench free. He hadn't expected this. Stupid, stupid!

“Let go!” he hissed breathily, still in character. 

“Well aren’t you a pretty whore? How much for a tumble, little ladyboy?” came a slurred growl from the alleyway. “Wouldn’t you look pretty on your knees for me?” 

The other scarred and tattooed arm shot out and pinched his bum roughly, gripping a sharp handful and yanking him into the doorway. Sherlock stiffened, eyes going cold and dark in a way that if the drunk had been paying attention, would have had him backing away apologizing frantically. 

That was it. Sherlock had had enough. 

He’d been groped, dehumanized, spilled on, demeaned, and underestimated all evening. He'd been inexpertly flirted with, he'd been patronized, he'd been ignored. He’d gathered some information, but not enough to justify the mewling, puny way he’d had to act the whole evening. 

Sherlock, after holding himself together all week, snapped.

Murmuring sweet assents, he let himself be reeled in, and when drawn in close, kneed the bastard viciously in the groin. Sherlock drank in the agonized shriek with grim pleasure. 

It wasn’t even a challenging fight. The drunk landed one hit on Sherlock’s cheekbone before Sherlock quietly, with deadly accuracy and great satisfaction, took him apart slowly and systematically with his fists. He was feeling generous, and didn’t reach for any of the knives hidden on his person. 

Perhaps he shouldn’t have calculated the bruises he’d leave exactly equidistant, so the man would wake up striped by expert fists. 

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so gleefully methodological about dislocating the fingers that had pinched his bum so roughly.

Perhaps it wasn’t morally right to leave the man black and blue and moaning in a puddle of someone else’s vomit, and perhaps it wasn’t virtuous to whistle happily and give the man a swift kick as he left. 

He sauntered home happily. The demimonde collectively looked at the man spattered with blood and whistling indecently, with his tight trousers and rouge, and gleeful bounce in his step, and decided not to bother him tonight.

Sherlock understood that he should feel guilty for beating the man to a pulp, but Sherlock had never claimed to be a good man. He had to get his jollies somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken so long, it required a lot of research! Also, finals. This would be much faster if I didn't have to research period accurate euphemisms for toilet and such...
> 
> pinafore: like an apron, worn by young girls.
> 
> ascot: like a cravat. a sort of necktie.
> 
> libertine: a young person, usually male, who enjoyed all the illicit pleasures of society, but, as I understand it, did so publicly. So public drinking, public sexual behavior, public drug use, etc. Moneyed hedonists.
> 
> viscomte: a kind of lesser noble. Translates to vice count. The amount of trouble I had finding information about the status of nobility in this period was odd. As far as I understand, titles stopped being given out in 1870, but the titled families continued to use them. So Mycroft is a peer of the realm, which used to be given only to ducs and those with major lands, but in this period, was given to those with large amounts of influence in the government.
> 
> cabinet de toilet: bathroom. lav. loo. potty. researching the etymology of these was fascinating. if you have free time, I highly suggest it. Impress your friends!
> 
> tread the boards: act.
> 
> John's Bit Not Good day to follow! Let me know what you think!


	7. Chapter 7

John was also having a bit of a challenging evening. 

Still giddy on artistic success, he had painted several new landscapes, each more beautiful and inspired than the last before he ventured out for a bite to eat. 

Limping gamely along the boulevard with a bit of a spring in his ungainly step, he didn’t notice the sleek black barouche pull up beside him until it was too late. It was an imposing carriage, drawn by a matched pair of black Arabians. The driver was hooded, unusual for the early May warmth. Warning bells rang in John’s mind as the driver tied off the reins and, climbing down gracefully, opened the door of the barouche. A silky voice issued from the dark interior. 

“Doctor Watson. Care to join me for a little drive?”

John peered cautiously into the vehicle, trying to make out the inhabitant. 

“I really would rather not,” he called guardedly.

A sigh issued from the velvet interior. “Get in, monsieur. I’d rather not do this the hard way.” 

“What do you want with me?” John tightened his grip on his cane stubbornly.

“I have a few...sensitive questions for you. I’d prefer not to shout them at you like a fishwife.” 

John remained impassive. The voice relented a bit. 

“It’s about Sherlock.” John surveyed his surroundings. The boulevard was crowded, and enough people were watching the elegant carriage and the stubborn little painter shout at each other to make it unlikely that this was a kidnapping, or an effective one, anyway. He couldn’t deny that he was curious about the mysterious Sherlock LeBeau, and since when had John Watson ever turned from danger? 

With a sigh, he awkwardly clambered into the low slung carriage. The lone occupant was an immaculately attired, obviously wealthy gentleman sitting primly upright on the seat opposite him. His coat and waistcoat were dove gray, and his cravat was snowy white silk. As John watched, he inhaled a bit of snuff from a gold, monogrammed snuffbox. He managed to make out the initials MH before it was whisked away. Two sharp raps on the barouche’s wall and they were pulling smoothly into traffic. 

The man leaned back and examined him minutely. John stared defiantly back. He noticed no guns hidden on the man, no signs of concealed weaponry, and as it became clear that the man was content to examine him, John studied him right back. He noted the sumptuously textured fabric of his clothing and the encroaching bald spot on his pate, as well as his pinched lips and frown lines. No wedding ring. 

“Doctor Watson. What is your affiliation with the young man you brought home two days ago?” 

“I could be mistaken, but I don’t believe that’s any of your affair.” John replied evenly, with a slightly unpleasant smile. “Who are you? I don’t believe we’ve been acquainted.” The man leaned against the back of his seat superciliously. 

“An interested party. I am perhaps the closest thing to a friend that Sherlock is capable of having.”

“And what’s that?” 

“An enemy.” 

John tried not to let the surprise show on his face. “An enemy?”

“In his mind, certainly." He pursed his lips slightly. "If you continue to see him, I’d be happy to pay you a meaningful sum of money in exchange for tidbits of information. I worry about him so.” 

“No. No, I’m not interested, thank you very much.”

“You’re very loyal very quickly.” The man noted, eyebrow raised.

“No, I’m just not interested.” John repeated stubbornly. A tiny part of him was screaming that this man could pay his rent thrice over and still have enough to buy him a new easel, but it was quashed by his conscience, and yes, camaraderie with Sherlock Lebeau. He had tended his wounds, created art around him, and broken bread with the man. He would not say one word about him to an unctuous man with a golden snuff box who so baldly proclaimed himself his enemy. 

“Are we done here?” John inquired coolly, hoping to extricate himself from the barouche. 

The man regarded him with displeasure, and something that John struggled to place. Was it a brief flash of respect? 

“Yes, I believe we are, Doctor Watson. Please send my regards to your new...friend.”

The carriage drew to a stop, horses stomping as they were pulled to rest. John nodded once, and began to carefully clamber out of the carriage, dragging his injured leg and leaning heavily on his cane. The man, MH, spoke suddenly.

“A word to the wise, monsieur. When one walks with Sherlock, one begins to see Paris as a battlefield. I suggest you reconsider your association with him if you aren’t ready for war.” A dispassionately pointed glance at his leg. 

“Good day monsieur.” John bit off, taking the last ungainly step onto the asphaltum and scowling. Damn my leg, he thought to himself. At least he wasn’t far from his studio on Baker Street. 

He blinked and looked around. As a matter of fact, he was steps from his door. John briefly entertained the thought that MH had planned the entire exchange thusly, before he noticed a discordant jangle in the sounds of Paris. 

As he pricked up his ears, he heard the sounds of a man crudely trying to pick up a prostitute and then a shriek of pain. His lips quirked. He imagined Sherlock being propositioned, and the haughty way he looked down his creamy nose at the world. John wouldn’t put it past the proud man to refuse customers who didn’t ask politely enough. He hobbled to his door and began to make himself a cup of tea. 

As he pottered with the kettle and tea, he focused on a niggling blossom of suspicion. 

What did a man as important and wealthy as MH want with a lorette like Sherlock? The man had called Sherlock by his Christian name, indicating that he and Sherlock were roughly equals. John, although inexperienced with the aristocracy, understood that that was uncommon. What could Sherlock possibly have done to incur the enmity of someone so powerful? Why was MH so concerned with his movements? 

John flicked through possibilities in his mind as he cupped his steaming mug. The only one that made the slightest bit of sense was the idea that MH was a lover of Sherlock’s and their affair had turned sour. Although a man with MH’s power surely would have taken on a courtesan or a mistress rather than a street clandestine. Perhaps they knew each other from the time of the commune, when things were more equal? Perhaps Sherlock was some sort of spy? 

Speculation would get him nowhere, he told himself, but his mind kept returning to the subject, poking at it like a loose tooth. 

He couldn’t really imagine Sherlock with MH. They were too similar in a way, both long and lean and pale. For purely aesthetic reasons, Sherlock would look best with someone the physical opposite of him. 

John let himself picture alabaster paired with golden skin, long, elegant limbs matched with a strong, sturdy chest. How well he could envision the scene! And what a striking image it would be. 

He would paint the two figures at rest in a Classical grove, perhaps as wood nymphs. Yes, a grassy, shadowed stand of trees would offset Sherlock’s artful pallor and the other figure’s tanned glow beautifully. 

Absentmindedly, John grabbed up his sketchbook and blocked out the proportions of the scene. Filling in some brief details, he held it at arm’s length and studied the Classical pastoral romance. 

There was Sherlock, flung luxuriously on a bed of green, and there was the other man, kneeling over him protectively. He looked oddly familiar.

John studied the sturdy, shorter figure, taking in the watchful guardian-like stance, and winced as he slammed up against the realization that he’d drawn himself into the painting. He tossed the sketch away from him as if it had scorched him. 

John Watson would be Sherlock’s perfect aesthetic opposite. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, resolutely pushing away thoughts of the juxtaposition of silver and gold in a dark forest. Rising, he tidied his rooms from force of habit, and then retired early. No need to be awake any longer to think such dangerous thoughts. 

The next morning, John awoke, and in a rare moment of self indulgence, strolled down to the cafe on the corner, bought himself a copy of Le Figaro, and savored a croissant and some espresso while he watched the people go by. Though he’d boasted about his observational skills to Sherlock, John privately didn’t consider himself particularly observant at all, especially compared to Sherlock. But John was remarkable in one way.

John knew bodies. 

His background as a soldier had taught him all the ways a body could break, and how to spot danger from body language.

John’s experience as a battlefield medic had taught him both how to heal bodies, and how to diagnose ailments and injuries incredibly rapidly. John could spot a cholera patient at fifty meters, and consumption at twenty.

And John understood bodies from painting them. He focused both his military and medical understanding to capture the curve of a hip and the smoothness of a shoulder. The scars and dimples of fat and birthmarks he painted were almost photorealistic, so deep was his understanding of the human form. He also prided himself on being a thorough and considerate lover.

John’s observational skills were perhaps not as impressive as Sherlock’s, who could glean that information and more from accents and thumbs, but John didn’t specialize in theory. He specialized in practice.

John had the sneaking suspicion that despite or perhaps because of his line of work, Sherlock avoided bodies if he could help it. He certainly didn’t take good care of his own.

Interesting that, a prostitute that let his wares get so thin and scarred. 

The drugs often went with the territory, John understood that, but the protruding bones and scars from what appeared to be chemical burns and knives? Not to mention the callouses on his fingertips. An instrument, perhaps the violin? 

He had assumed by the way Sherlock had almost succeeded in seducing him, John who was emphatically not a sodomite, that he was a very good prostitute indeed, but his body told a different story. 

Sherlock’s body hinted that he either hadn’t been a prostitute for very long, or had a deep sort of inner loathing. 

John let himself examine his suspicions as he absently paged through the newspaper. Flipping through gallery openings, society pages and classified adverts, a headline grabbed his eye. le Boucher Massacre un plus Prostitué!! The butcher slays another prostitute? A prickle of worry ran down John’s spine. He anxiously skimmed the piece. 

No mention of names, but it seemed that there was a murderer on the loose that the press had nicknamed the Butcher for his habit of scattering chunks of male prostitute all over Paris. Suddenly anxious to see Sherlock, John got hastily to his feet, flung a few centimes on the table for the garcon, and limped home as quickly as he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has been so long guys, I've had my wisdom teeth out and been basically the soul cousin of a Nubian fainting goat on hella drugs for a week. So that happened. Anyway, here's another chapter! Happy Christmas!
> 
> Barouche: a sleek, lovely carriage type, favored by the upper class. Drawn by two horses, closed, with two seats facing each other and a driver on the outside.
> 
> I did borrow some dialogue from Study in Pink for this, but adapted it to fit rough ye olde speech patterns.
> 
> Differing gradients of prostitution in 1870s Paris! When John is pondering Mycroft and Sherlock's association, he thinks that Mycroft wouldn't have picked a prostitute of Sherlock's assumed station, and he is correct! Prostitutes in this era ranged from the fortifications whores (called la paillase, or, the mattress) to courtesans, who were often kept in fabulous style. Sherlock is posing as a low to mid range prostitute here. Because there's far less data about male prostitution I've had to fudge it all a bit. He's a street clandestine, who is not openly selling wares, or in a brothel, but makes it pretty clear that they're available. 
> 
> The scene John draws is a traditional one, one that the Academy would love. They were the main art institution, and essentially what John and the Impressionists were rebelling against. They basically thought that the only good art was painting or sculpture of Classical, historical, or religious material. John's sketch, however, is subversive in that it's two men in repose, not two women or a heterosexual couple. 
> 
> Le Figaro is the oldest French newspaper, and it's still around!
> 
> Consumption: I believe this is now tuberculosis? 
> 
> Tell me what you think. I thrive on feedback like a flower feeds on shit.


	8. Chapter 8

An hour or so after he got up, Sherlock rapped on John’s door. 

It flew open as if John had been anxiously waiting for him. At a glance, Sherlock noticed John's tufted hair, newly pronounced limp and his ramrod tight military bearing. 

“Whatever is the matter, John?” Sherlock frowned. 

John’s eyes widened when he saw him, and he unconsciously touched his own eye. 

“Sherlock. You’re hurt. Again.” 

Sherlock winced. He had completely forgotten about the black eye the drunk had managed to land. 

John waved him in commandingly, and as Sherlock perched on the chair with his knees up, John went again to find his medical bag. 

“What happened this time?” He emerged from the other room with another piece of meat and another wet flannel. “Two beatings in as many days is unlikely for normal people.”

“You should see the other fellow.” Sherlock replied with utmost truth, wincing as the wet cloth gently eased away the blood. 

“I’m being serious, Sherlock.” John regarded him with concern. “Was it the same man as last time?”

“No. Handsy customer.” If Sherlock hadn’t been paying magnifying glass levels of concentration, he would have missed the flash of possessiveness on John’s face. 

“I see.” John said, carefully dabbing an ointment on the bruise. “Who shall I call on to challenge to a duel?” Again, Sherlock would have mistaken that for humor had he not been watching. 

“Again, John, I can take care of myself.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you right now. You're one tall bruise. I’ll burn through all my crimson painting these cuts.” Something shifted across John’s face. Sherlock might warn him that he was too easy to read eventually, but for now it was useful.

“Say, you don’t happen to be acquainted with one MH, do you?”

Mycroft. The meddling bastard. What in god’s name was he doing with John?

“I might. Tall, poncy fellow?”

“That’s the one. We had an, ah, illuminating conversation yesterday. Your name came up.”

“He offered you a not insignificant sum of money to spy on me.” Sherlock said with certainty you could bend steel bars over.

John inclined his head slightly. “Yes. I refused.”

“Pity. You could have taken it and we could have split it. Think it through next time.”

John loosed a genuine smile at this, and Sherlock relaxed a bit. He still needed a cover story, however.

“I do hope he didn’t kidnap you. He has a flair for the dramatic.”

“Ah, well, he did, actually. Nice carriage he’s got, though.” 

Sherlock ruminated briefly. He needed to have serious words with Mycroft. He could not be allowed to break his cover. He needed this disguise to stay intact. Rumor spread through Paris like syphilis through an army unit, and he couldn't risk losing the in this disguise gave him.

“That gentleman and I were once more deeply, one might say intimately, acquainted than we are now. As it rests, we are no longer friends.” Sherlock answered the unspoken question deliberately. He chose his words carefully, in order to speak nothing but the truth, but let conclusions be easy to jump to. John’s hand tightened briefly on the handle of his medic’s bag, but his reply was even. 

“I didn’t much care for the fellow. I’m glad you’ve discontinued the acquaintance. One more thing before we pose. Did you happen to see le Figaro this morning?”

Sherlock shook his head mutely. He had better things to do than read the news.

“There was an article in it about a man who they call le Boucher. Apparently he hunts and kills… men like yourself.”

“Tall? Observant?” a sardonic eyebrow quirk.

“Not exactly.” John flushed slightly. This was the first time he’d brought up Sherlock’s assumed trade. “Lorettes.” 

Sherlock’s eyes widened and his lips narrowed. How had the press gotten ahold of this? They had been so discreet in their investigation, had bribed the discoverers of the corpses to hold their tongues. He was going to murder Lestrade for speaking to the press about this. Lestrade probably had a motive like ‘warn all possible victims so there would be no more murders’ or something equally frivolous.

John mistook Sherlock’s sudden flash of rage for fear. 

“I wouldn’t worry though,” he hastened to reassure him. “The head detective said that he had put his very best man on the case.”

Now that was unexpected. Perhaps Sherlock would save his tongue lashing of Lestrade for another day. 

“Sherlock…” John started, brow furrowed. Oh god, the man had an idea. 

“Mm?”

“This may be awfully forward, but I can’t help but ask. It seems we could both stand to benefit from an exchange of services.” Sherlock raised both eyebrows now, but John steamrollered on.

“You may recall that I am in need of a muse. You are in need of safety, it seems. Perhaps a different place of residence. One with a trained protector for when you get attacked tomorrow.”

Sherlock licked his lips unconsciously. 

A protector. What about that unexpected, seemingly accidental word choice warmed him? This was a far better idea than he’d anticipated of the man. 

It could be very useful to have John on his side as more than an artist, and the change of scene would do him good. His squalid rooms were not as convenient or clean as John’s tidy rooms. 

He made up his mind to ignore the logical voice that said he wasn’t really in need of protection or new rooms, he was contemplating sharing a flat with the little man to satisfy his curiosity about him. He buried deeper the truth that it could be more than idle curiosity that prompted him to willingly share living quarters and risk discovery to be closer to John. 

“Yes, right, you’re a doctor and a soldier. Any good?” He said to stall for time. 

A flash of quiet confidence and determination that had Sherlock unconsciously licking his lips again. “Very.” 

Right. Well. Sherlock nodded slowly. “I accept your offer. I’ll model for you during the day and at night, you’ll accompany me if I feel that I’ll be in danger.” Thinking quickly, he left himself an out. “Until this arrangement proves no longer beneficial.” 

A dazzling smile rose on John’s face. “You’ve got yourself a deal, monsieur. Go, pack your things. Bring them here. The address is two two one B Baker Street.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late guys. Break is a lovely time to A) do nothing B) stay out with friends all the time and C) get writers block. Short chapter here but more is written and coming as soon as I get back in touch with my lovely beta! 
> 
> At least they're moving in together, things will start to pick up from here!


End file.
